Documents can be produced on one computer system and displayed on another computer system. When a document is displayed on a computer system different from the computer system on which it was produced, or if the document is displayed on different computer systems, it may look differently to the user of each computer system. This can cause problems when users are discussing the document because each user will see the document a little differently from the others. Even if the document may not be discussed by different parties, the author may wish to ensure that the document looks the way the author intends it to look, no matter which type of computer is used to display it. For example, the look of a marketing document may be important to the author of that document, who would prefer to control its appearance precisely.
One solution to this problem has been to use a computer program designed to allow documents to retain the same look on different computer systems. The Acrobat program, such as Acrobat 6 commercially available from Adobe Systems Corporation of San Jose, Calif. is one such program. However, there are several problems with the Acrobat program. First, it requires the party wishing to view a document to obtain and then install application program software dedicated to that task, a time consuming approach. Once the software is installed, it must be run as a separate application program, which consumes additional time every time the user wishes to view the document.
Once the viewer runs the Acrobat program, an overwhelming user interface is shown to the user that, although allowing the user to perform a plethora of functions, can intimidate the user who may need to perform less than all of the functions available. This is particularly annoying in a document viewing program, because many users do not wish to use many functions at all: they just want to quickly view the document without having to learn a confusing user interface, such as that provided by the Adobe Acrobat software.
What is needed is a system and method that can allow a document to be viewed in a consistent format on different computer systems in a manner desired by the author of the document without requiring the party viewing the document to install software dedicated to viewing documents in a consistent format and without requiring the user to run an application program dedicated to viewing documents, and that has a user interface that can be customized by the author.